New & Noteworthy

On 16th of February, around 80 boarders and staff children had the opportunity of enjoying French and Spanish cinema in our very own school. This activity was organized by the Modern Language Department. There were 2 sessions (45 min. each) were dedicated for French and Spanish films and packets of popcorn were arranged for the kids to munch on while watching the movies. Short movies and interviews were played and they were widely enjoyed by the students. This was a great experience for everyone since they had a chance to improve their language skills and to learn more vocabulary.

In the Spanish movie session, we watched different videos which contained different accents. Spanish is spoken all over the world and even though the language is the same, every region has a different dialect which even native speakers find hard to recognize at times. We were exposed to the accents of Peru, Colombia and Spain and surprisingly we were able to distinguish between them. The students were most excited for Rafael Nadal’s interview since he talked about being a child prodigy and his continuous rise in the tennis world. We also watched an interview of Shakira, where she spoke about creating new music and her life with her two sons- Milan and Sasha. February being the month of the heart, we saw a short film based on two lovers who met in a super-market years later. This video was especially liked by students since the Spanish was simple and coherent.

These are some students´comments:

“According to me the second movie was the best as the moral was important and true.” (Sheil B. Gr. 8, French)

“All the 3 movies had a really nice moral to them but I liked the 2nd movie because of the story line and that a really small mouse could overpower such a big creature such as a lion.” (Somya T. Gr. 8, French)

“All the three movies were really nice and all of them had a very nice moral. Especially the last movie was very humorous. The second movie was very nice has it taught that we should do our work on our own. Overall, the movies were very nice.” (Saira A. Gr. 8, French)

“I was not able to attend to the complete session however the video on the couple who had separated and bumped into each other in a store was extremely moving and heart-warming.
Rafa Nadal’s documentary was quite nice as well. I learnt a few words and exposed myself to new accents and fluency. Thanks for organising this activities.” (Aastha A. Gr. 11, Spanish)

“I liked the video based in Valentine’s day because it was easy to understand and it had a really deep meaning. I even learned new words from it. I didn’t like Shakira’s video as I couldn’t understand her accent and it was very fast…” (Agrika M. Gr. 9, Spanish)

“The session was amazing, although few videos were to fast to understand like the interview of Shakira, but the videos were extremely nice like the Machu Picher and the videos about Spain as well as the interview of Rafa Nadal. Overall it was great!”(Jitendra B. Gr. 12, Spanish)

In total, it was a great opportunity for us to know more about Spanish and French speaking countries and to improve our skills. ¡Para mí, fue una experiencia fenomenal! Text by: Isha Sahai Bhatnagar. Grade 12